Twisted Little Man
by ThisThatAndTheOther
Summary: A Canadian writing an American Western about an English period-drama. What could go wrong? -or- There came a time in a man's life when the sole company of his horse on a cold night spent on the hard-packed dirt no longer held the same appeal as it once did.
1. Chapter 1

With lungs compromised and ribs constricted, Thomas' next breath was stunted – wet and burning. The vague taste of copper coated a tongue pressed up against lips that quivered, a mouth loosened into an absent vulnerable shape, unable to admit more than the release of a strangled sigh. Lying on his back, shoulder blooming deep red varicose across his duster, Thomas had no thought beyond the pain that accumulated, gushing into every crevice until it had nowhere else to go but to overflow, displacing the important parts of him up and over with the rest of the jetsam – until he was left with only pulp and crimson.

Above, he saw the wispy lattice of cloud cover the cerulean blue sky like French lace.

An opaque cumulonimbus of the blackest disposition moved in from the corners of his eyes with slow intent, bleeding shadows across his vision, smudging at fussy details until the sky's pigment leeched to grey to soot to nothing. Feeling incredibly heavy, Thomas closed his eyes against the growing darkness. A shrill ringing in his ears had grown, its vibration a tuning fork to the answering knell deep within him.

Perhaps his mother, so spiteful and proud, who had said – standing on her porch, eyes squinting against the midday's sun – that he would meet his death if he left, was right after all.

He found that the back of his eyelids were no more dark than what was before them. Soon, he forgot he had closed them at all and then Thomas knew no more.

* * *

><p><em>…36 hours earlier…<em>

* * *

><p>Thomas guided his horse into the crowded stream of the thoroughfare. He and Dilly were just one of many making their way through the mud, despite the late hour of the evening. The horse's gait was slow and cautious against the unstable bodies going this way and that.<p>

Lanterns hung from the rafters of the timber buildings that buffeted the path, their golden light emitting fuzzy halos in the purpling dusk. In the windows of some of the stores flickered individual candles, beckoning patrons to come inside and spend their money.

A few finer dressed ladies, with handkerchiefs tightly clutched in dainty fists covering their mouths, travelled separately along the wooden boards paralleling the store fronts lining the path. Even from the middle of the thoroughfare, where the mud rushed up to greet its travellers, Thomas could tell the difference in wealth of these women dressed in vibrant frocks from those women dressed in subdued browns who brushed close past Dilly.

It was slow moving, Thomas competing with fellow travellers for space as they made their way deeper into the heart of the small settlement. Without complaint, Thomas watched those passing him with a sly eye. The throng of faces afforded Thomas a shroud of anonymity that was an unusual luxury; both the strong angles of Thomas' pale face and the shiny, ebony of Dilly's coat drew more eyes than was welcome on most days.

The powerful suction of mud pulled Dilly's shoes deep into the messy quagmire, making each step a tedious struggle. Beneath him, Thomas sensed her displeasure for such an activity, the horse preferring the dry grasses of the trails.

Thomas knew they shouldn't be in such a town, where so many people could see his face. But their path, however dirty and uncertain, was unavoidable. For as much as he valued the clandestine shade of the trails, Thomas couldn't bear the loneliness they sentenced for another night longer. There came a time in a man's life when the sole company of his horse on a cold night spent on the hard-packed dirt no longer held the same appeal as it once did. It had little way for conversation, between Dilly and him, and cold once the fire dwindled to embers. Thomas spent too much of the night staring into the flames until his face was tight and eyes burned.

Farther down the main artery of town, Thomas spotted what prompted him to detour through this shanty town – a warm place where he could drink and possibly put his head to a pillow. Carson's stood taller than any of its neighbouring buildings, boasting three floors, the last of which featured a wide balcony. Through the night, Thomas could spy a tall man with a protruding belly bracing his arms against the railing, surveying the street below. Only an imposing man could cut a silhouette like that.

The saloon itself was radiating sound and light out into the path, a beacon of warmth in the chill of the night. Thomas tied Dilly to the post before it, for now, not wanting to wait to find a livery stable to house her. She eyed the water trough that sat before it – her tail swishing twice fast when the murky brown colour of it revealed several blowflies bigger than flattened dollars floating listlessly across its surface. Thomas considered it barely fit to dampen a fire, but for now it would have to do.

"I am sorry, Dilly," he said as he looped the final knot of her reigns. They both knew it did not compare to the cool rivers from the trail. Thomas brushed the length of her nose, "I promise I will make it up to you."

Dilly flicked her eye up to his with a look that could not be mistaken for anything other than _you better_. She once stamped her forefoot into the mud and looked away, dismissing Thomas to leave her to sulk in her own situation – a poor and becursed animal.

Knowing she needed no help in pitying herself, Thomas left her to wallow, making his way up the creaking steps and through the doors of the saloon.

Tinny and out of tune notes trampled their way from the upright piano position in the corner of the saloon, opposite to where Thomas now stood in the door. Raucous laughter leaving unclean and gaping mouths accompanied its ragtime and created an oppressive clamour that Thomas did not care for. Through the murky haze of smoke refracted in the lamps' glow, he saw that the tables were full of wind-swept and dirty men whose backs, bent from years of labour under a hot sun, did not inhibit their ability to drink, to play cards, or to be objectionable in a general sense. Carson's was popularised by patrons that Thomas usually steered clear of – those driven wild in the foolish attempt to work gold from the nearby rivers.

Thomas' bad temper weighed heavily at the corners of his mouth. It was a cantankerous feeling brought on by having expectations dashed and could only be solved by drink.

Finding an empty stool at the bar, Thomas relieved his hat from his head and sat heavily upon the seat. He shifted, figuring he had more sand in his underwear than could be found in the trails.

A greasy woman with a strange plume of curls adorning the top of her head, dressed curiously in trousers and a vest, stood behind the bar. She turned from her hushed dealings with another patron - one far dustier and malnourished than he – and looked at Thomas with the poorly concealed disdain that came naturally only to bartenders. Though it was clear Thomas was new to his seat and without drink, she made no rush to serve him. Thomas eyed the pistol decorating her hip, its meaning obvious, something telling him her draw would rival the best hired guns in California.

She finally moved towards him with a succinct economy of movement and gave him a look.

"A mysterious stranger, hailing from only God knows where, has seated himself at this humble bar, looking – I might add – cooler than hot, polished shit. To what do we owe the pleasure."

Her tone was unsavoury, halfway lost between aggression and jest, and just heard over the crowd. The false comradery forced upon Thomas, like he was an old friend returning from a long journey, was just another offence Thomas had to endure at Carson's.

"Whiskey, please."

"Straight to the point, I can appreciate that in a man," the bartender said as she slammed a cloudy glass in front of Thomas, filling it with an amber liquid from an unmarked bottle, "No need for a man to monologue determinedly when all ears are closed to such natterings."

Thomas eyed this strange bartender coolly as he took a sip of his drink. He swished the rotgut despite its burn to dislodge some of the more tenacious grit that had collected from the day's ride.

The bartender could heed her own advice.

"As you can see, this saloon is full of men who are not interested in the words of others, unless they glimmer with the shine of gold assured to be soon in hand."

A shriek pierced over the din, and Thomas turned to see a dusty man with a giggling whore half his age over his shoulder climb a set of rickety stairs.

"Or glisten with the promise of pussy." The way the bartender shrugged, easy and unperturbed by these happenings, soured Thomas' stomach.

Hoping to fill at least one emptiness for another, Thomas downed his drink, "Another, please."

"I have to admit you have me hooked, mysterious stranger. What's your name?" She poured and leaned against the sticky bar, untroubled by the liquid seeping into her vest, her voice still as bored as it ever was.

Thomas couldn't help stiffening at the question, hand halted halfway between the bar and his mouth. He swirled the amber liquid and stared into the glass, playing off the movement's hiccup as intentional. It would not be wise to disclose his name.

"Kent," He used the name of a man he once knew. Now gone, somewhere in Montana, Thomas felt his absence just as sharply as the first time the hard, cruel tip of Kent's colt jabbed into Thomas' ribs, just as tenderly as the last time the chapped, chaste lips of Kent brushed Thomas' own. His eyes raised to meet the woman's, at once daring her to question it and insisting it was true.

She didn't blink, "And what brings you to Carson's, Kent?"

His second glass went as quickly as the first, and Thomas could feel it pooling hotly in his stomach, slowly draining into his extremities until it dripped thick as molasses through the muscles of his calves.

"Business, miss," Thomas sneered into his now empty cup, "is what brings me to this sorry excuse of an establishment. Business – none of which – is yours."

Thomas chose not to tell her of his ties to the Crawleys or the circumstances that necessitated his immediate evacuation of Downton. Likewise, he kept his plans to head towards Sacremento before following the Siskiyou Trail north into Oregon and possibly as far as the Yukon to himself.

"No, it won't due to call me miss here; you'll be laughed out of town. The name's O'Brien."

"Then, Ms. O'Brien, if you would kindly leave the bottle for the remainder of the evening, I will gladly pay you for the damage I make unto it."

His bid for solitude had no effect, accustomed as she was to the crude and sullen, and she remained before him, appraising. A gleam of a dollar sign in her eye. "We have darts and cards, for which I can deal you in, if it isn't above your sad sack's sorry disposition. Or, if you need relaxation of a different kind, I can always point you in the right direction."

Clumsy though it was, Thomas could tell her lines usually worked, easy as it was to inspire debauchery in the heads of drifters – desperate and made stupid from long periods of time alone wrestling with Nature.

"I will partake in none of what you offer and ask only that I be left alone."

"Well, you can't blame me for being hospitable," she pushed away from the bar, her irritation only showing in the quick twist of her mouth as she turned to her other patrons.

Thomas was glad to be rid of her, her sharp eyes seeing too much and her bored tone revealing too little.

A third and a fourth drink were knocked back, and eventually the scowl loosened from his brow and his body warmed. Tip-toeing the line of drunk, he let his glass remain empty for the time being, enjoying the peace afforded by cheap whiskey – his mind quieter than before. The noise behind him had distorted softly, as loud sounds usually do after long exposure.

Thomas could think it half-way decent, if it weren't for the ever present smell of sweat hanging in the air.

He felt before he saw a mass of indistinguishable shape drop into the seat next to him. Swivelling his head to the side, he had to let the room catch up with a rolling blink before he could assess his neighbour. Thomas immediately noticed the way the man sat turned in towards him, as if already in conversation. The stranger had sandy blonde hair – straw thin – that was brushed back from a strong brow and dark eyes that skittered between the bar and O'Brien before they found Thomas' own. A naturally upturned mouth smeared dusty pink across an otherwise tanned face.

Unlike Thomas, who took pains to dress in a linen shirt covered with a vest and suit jacket, clean despite the hard travelling, his seatmate wore a dirty set of blues and his hands were discoloured with work.

It suited him.

"You're new," the man said, his voice much deeper than Thomas expected. His eyes flittered across Thomas' form, from head to toe.

Despite himself, Thomas could feel his lips curve upwards, and he turned bodily towards the stranger with a nod.

"That your horse out front?" he asked with a gesture towards the door, his fingers starting to tap out frantic rhythm against the bar.

When Thomas nodded again with a bemused smirk, the man huffed and swivelled towards the bar.

He ran his dirty hands through his hair once. Losing an internal debate within himself before he turned back, eyes narrowing.

"All you cowboy types are the same. All style and bravado, caring little for anything but yourself and the source of the next gold piece," he pushed himself off of the stool, "I should hope someone steals her from you."

With a final rap against the bar, the stranger turned and made his way towards the door.

Thomas watched him go, paying particular attention to the fit of the man's slacks. He had a peculiar gait, as if the stranger wasn't meant for the hard labour he wore like a set of armor. With a private smile, Thomas picked up his glass before remembering he had yet to fill it. He slugged back one more shot quickly before he signalled for O'Brien, miraculously only having to wait just a moment before she deigned to move before him.

"Are there any beds to rent tonight—free of company?"


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning Thomas discovered he had misplaced Dilly; or, rather more precisely, Dilly was absent from where Thomas had last left her.

He had left early the room that he had secured with O'Brien the night before, his neighbours having decided that dawn was a good enough time as any to start arguing about what was owed to whom; and as Thomas cared not to discover the outcome of such a squabble, he had risen with the sun, slipped on his trousers, and clipped his gun belt to sit low on his narrow hips. He had slipped down the back stairs and emerged in the open space behind Carson's formidable structure, looking towards the slap-dash sheltering that the owners of the establishment thought would serve as a stable for its patrons and where Thomas had deposited his horse last night. When he returned, ready to greet Dilly a good morning, however, he had found her absent, having sometime before absconded from her ties and wandered out of her stall, through the closed doors of the stable without so much as a bray goodbye.

It was all very peculiar and unlike Dilly, as doors were a particular difficulty for her.

He squatted and examined the hay that littered the floor of her former stall. Thomas spit into the straw, recognising the deep impressions in its strands for what they were—tracks that could only have been left by man. Someone, while Thomas slept dead to the world under the deep dark pull of whiskey, had come and taken Dilly. He stood and brushed at his knees.

That would not do.

The heels of his boots ricocheted like bullets against the wooden floors as he strode into Carson's. What few patrons remained, half sitting and sprawled over tables as litter abandoned, lifted their heads and squinted at his entrance—more bewildered than angry for the disruption. A bored woman in a revealing slip—no older than sixteen, Thomas figured—watched him from a table in the corner with jaded eyes that took in the cut of his suit for longer than he appreciated.

Extinguished were the hanging lamps that had lent the room some sense of warmth the night before, and the unforgiving light of the morning revealed it to be a lonely and tired place with its wood stained in whiskey and spent tobacco. It was little more than a room with an assortment of tables and chairs, and Thomas was saddened he had spent so much of his night warming a stool within the space.

With fresh insult blooming salty in his mouth, he turned in distaste towards the bar. He found O'Brien staring at him with an eyebrow raised, half turned from the same sickly man she had been whispering with when Thomas first arrived. Her acquaintance was also staring, sight greedy with the idea that it was his god given right to pin Thomas with such a blatant look.

"Did the whiskey find its retribution this morning, Mr. Kent?" O'Brien looked pleased to think this.

At her question her acquaintance picked up a broom and pushed it across the floor, for what little good it would do. Thomas watched the man take upon such a useless endeavour, for a moment observing the dust and sand bloom in the hazy beams of sunlight breaking through the few windows. He was halfway disappointed that the man had left on his own volition, robbing Thomas of the satisfaction of telling him to make himself scarce. He pinned the contemptible barmaid with the full heat of his glare.

"Where is my horse?" He didn't deign her question worthy of answering—the whiskey, while still giving heat to his limbs, was not the source of his fever.

"Your horse?" She set a small glass before her and filled it with a clear liquid, "Why, you left it out back, if I remember correctly."

His steps slowly devoured the space between them as he crossed the floor to reach the bar. O'Brien looked nonplussed as she swallowed her drink.

"My horse is not out back, as I had left her," He placed his palms onto the still sticky surface of the bar, containing a grimace, and let his eyes bore into hers, "so I will ask again: Where. Is. My. Horse, _Miss_ O'Brien?"

She held his eyes and the corner of her mouth curled marginally, as if his display amused her. He felt something burn hotly against his ribs, and he understood it to be a wrath eager for release pressing against his chest.

"Are you accusing me of stealing your horse?" She didn't wait for his answer, "I've no want for your horse, _Mister_ Kent, for I have no place to be but here. Perhaps, instead, you should reconsider you knot-tying skills after drinking from my bottle of whiskey."

Whatever mirth pulled at her mouth soured on her lips, leaving them pursed in annoyance, "You best remember where exactly you are when you make an accusation like that."

Thomas remembered the gun that hung at her hip and felt the weight of his own.

"Now, Sarah, that isn't any way to treat a man distraught over the loss of his beloved horse." A deep baritone sounded from behind Thomas.

He turned to look over his shoulder and saw a man dressed entirely in black, his suit fitted and faintly pinstriped, standing at the foot of the stairs. Thomas instantly recognised from his paunch as the one belonging to the man on the balcony the evening of his arrival. He hadn't heard him descend, nor did he know how long he had been listening.

"Forgive me my barmaid, for she can be ill-tempered in the morning." The man walked towards Thomas, who could tell that the man had a profound capacity for asperity despite his current display of diplomacy. Thomas figured it was a character trait necessary in the running of a successful business that catered to the kind of clientele Carson's favoured, but it singled him out as a man untrustworthy. Meanwhile Thomas could tell Carson was recognising some arcane qualities buried deep within his skin. In the time it took him to walk over, he had measured the profile Thomas cut and found him lacking in a glaring way. It was a realisation that made Thomas feel small, almost physically shrinking from the man, despite him being a stranger. He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin slightly to compensate, angry at the man for the reaction he had caused.

"Mr. Carson," The man nodded in introduction but didn't offer his hand to shake, "And you are, from what I gather, Mr. Kent."

"Pleasure," Thomas grunted, feeling anything but at their meeting.

Mr. Carson's responding hum was so low it nearly vibrated Thomas' chest, revealing that he knew the sentiment to be false and perhaps felt the same, "You are missing your horse, yes?"

Thomas nodded.

"And you had last left her at our stables?"

When Thomas nodded a second time, Mr. Carson narrowed his eyes. Thomas thought it was to accuse the disappearance of his horse as a mess of his own making with its roots tangled in neglect. He bristled at the charge and the eventual implication that Thomas was a liar angling to swindle such a lecherous business.

"Richards!"

The man pushing the broom spooked and looked up from his task, "Yes, Mr. Carson?" Thomas found his voice to be as weak as his biceps looked braced against the handle of the broom.

"Why is this man's horse missing from the stables?"

Richards looked puzzled, eyes jumping from Mr. Carson and Thomas—his lower lip trembling pendulous in anticipation of the owner's response. When his answer wasn't prompt enough, Carson asked again, only louder.

"I—I don't know, sir?"

Thomas found himself part of a very unusual tableau, unsure of how Richards fit into Dilly's disappearance. He watched curiously as O'Brien avoided the exchange, keeping her eyes to the drink-stained bar, chaste in solidarity with her targeted colleague. Looking back towards Mr. Carson he saw a man whose plenteous black brown was furrowed, belying a violence lurking in an otherwise calm posture. Thomas wished to step back and distance himself from such volatility, but he didn't dare make a move.

Mr. Carson stared at Richards for a time—long enough that the man began to tremble under the weight.

"Mr. Carson, I—I"

"Go to my office," Mr. Carson said.

"Mr. Car—"

"Go to my office," he enunciated, "and wait for me there."

Richards took to the stairs slowly and Thomas watched the ascent of a man doomed. Mr. Carson waited until the creak of the steps halted and were replaced by the groan of the floorboards of the second storey. Then he returned his gaze to Thomas, who bore the weight of his attention with considerable grace.

"My sincerest apology, Mr. Kent. It is challenging to find reliable help here," Mr. Carson clasped his shoulder and Thomas found himself directed towards the door, "Your room will be complimentary until your search proves successful."

Thomas blinked against a particularly bright beam of sun, having been positioned before the exit. He stepped out from under the heavy hand of Carson's and adjusted his duster, mindful that Carson watched him do so.

"Of which, I have no doubt it will be. Your horse is bound to be somewhere. Until then, don't hesitate to ask anything of O'Brien." Mr. Carson turned, heading towards the stairs, "Good luck in reclaiming your horse, Mr. Kent!"

For a moment, Thomas had a mind to go back into Carson's and demand from the man immediate compensation for his horse, but as he had been effectively ejected from the bar, Thomas was confident that he had all but himself to rely upon to find Dilly. He didn't want to depend upon the man in any way, for as much as Carson had discovered him wanting in some profound manner, so too had Thomas found him lacking. Carson was not a man to be engaged, and Thomas should avoid him at all costs, accepting his free accommodations as fair and moving on to find Dilly by himself.

Thomas stood for a moment on the deck of Carson's before the full weight of the task before him revealed itself. Thomas sucked at his teeth as he surveyed the crowded thoroughfare before him, arms braced on his hips. He was in a predicament. Without Dilly there was no way for him to leave this town this morning as he had intended, and leaving without her was as unsavoury as it was unfeasible. He had money, but none of it could be spared on a new horse; he had collected and saved just enough cash to push him north and nothing more. A new mare of Dilly's calibre would set him back enough so that he'd never make it as far as he wanted, stuck within the long the reach of the Crawleys. But without a horse at all he was stuck here, even closer to their grasping hands, for the long miles he'd have to traverse to reach his destination were impossible by foot.

The consistent tic of the second hand had an ominous echo in his mind as Thomas felt himself wasting time he couldn't afford. He had already spent too much time in this shanty town, and if he were to find Dilly, barring that she was to be found, he'd be spending even more than he preferred. With time came people, and Thomas knew he couldn't afford to be making any ties with anyone. He needed to leave the south without a trace.

It was a damn unacceptable state of affairs.

But a man could do no good on an empty stomach, and Thomas intended to correct that. He would have his fill of breakfast and then begin his search for Dilly properly, for he had to hope that Dilly was still in camp, waiting for him instead of any of the alternatives.

He pushed his way through the walking stream and made his way towards the boarding house he had seen upon his arrival. He remembered seeing a chalk sign listing the price of a plate of food on the side of its building and hoped it would still be available. Upon entering its doors, Thomas realised he was not the only man to have seen the sign and thought it just as appetizing.

A long line of hungry bellies, clothed in dirty linens and pressed suits alike, stood waiting to be served by a short, round woman with a shock of orange curls bursting through her bonnet. As they passed her, they would extend an empty plate with a polite silence and a coin and she would serve up something resembling biscuits and gravy.

Thomas took up a plate from a stack nearing the end of the line and joined its queue, waiting to be served. While he stood, he considered Dilly and where she might be. He thought about her and wondered under whose hands she had wandered away—whose feet now sullied her stirrups. Jealousy was an intense and familiar feeling that flushed his system with a distracting heat, making it hard for Thomas to think.

It was the strength of these thoughts that made Thomas oblivious to the keen stare of the server's companion at first, but eventually the familiar weight of eyes pressed heavy against his person, as if the gaze pushed physically against his skin, chipped away against his concentration. Thomas shifted and moved to do the only thing he knew how; he looked up to challenge it.

A balding man of middling age and middling description had sidled up beside the woman with a new tray of biscuits that were still steaming. He wore suspenders over a white shirt stained at the belly, suggesting time spent wrestling with cookery at a counter waist high. His sleeves were rolled up and pinned at the elbows, with no vest or jacket to speak of. Though he wasn't doing anything to conceal his astonished glare, no one besides Thomas had yet to observe his gaping and in turn, follow his gaze to notice Thomas.

To his extreme displeasure, the man opened his mouth.

"You're new, aren't you?"

Thomas contemplated the unnecessary question with as much intensity as he considered the man's hairline—which is to say, with very little of anything except annoyed indifference.

The man took Thomas' silence as encouragement so he continued, "Only, I haven't seen you here before, and I see most people when they come." He set the biscuits down, allowing his full concentration to fall upon Thomas, "You didn't stay the night here, did you? Oh! Or are you planning to stay the night… tonight?"

"Molesley," his woman friend, still serving another patron, all but screeched, "Leave the poor man alone! Go see if Daisy's finished the beans."

The man—Molesley, his name rolling ungainly on the tongue attached to the voice of his mind—had the presence to look mollified and left, giving Thomas a friendly nod suggesting that there would be more of his curiosity at a time better suited for questions.

"You'll have to excuse Mr. Molesley. He can get a little over familiar when things excite him," the cook said, grabbing Thomas' plate. She loaded it with an extra biscuit and drowned it in a thick, white gravy. On top of it, she spooned out a good amount of baked beans swimming in molasses, quickly spreading into the gravy until their combined sauces filled the plate. Thomas' stomach gurgled in greeting.

She smiled having heard it, "Welcome to Patmore's," and then turned to grab the next empty plate on offer, "There's coffee further on," and Thomas felt distinctly dismissed from her presence.

True to her word, there was a small station filled with cups and a large, silver urn. After filling one for himself, he surveyed the small seating area provided and realised that he would have to share a table in order to eat.

Most tables were at capacity, full of men conversing over their shared breakfasts. Thomas spotted a table that was occupied by only one man with bright red hair near a window. Thomas sat with his head down and began to shovel his baked beans into his mouth with the slow, methodical motions of someone who wanted people to think he was engrossed with his food and was not to be engaged in conversation of any kind. He lifted his coffee mug to his lips, instantly grimacing at its contents.

"Welcome to Patmore's, home to the first coffee that could stand on its own," his seatmate said with a grin. He lifted his own cup in a cheer and swallowed thickly around the viscous fluid.

"It's like tar," Thomas said, tilting his mug to examine how the coffee swirled, moving like no coffee Thomas had ever seen.

"I like to think it a black, bitter custard," the stranger said, "then that way it's like dessert in the morning."

An inane thing to hope for—out here, at this time in the day—Thomas thought, but his companion was young enough to be pleased with the thought of something sweet before noon. Thomas chose to find sweetness in the beans instead and continued to spoon his breakfast into his awaiting mouth.

"What brings you to camp?"

Thomas glared at the ginger. "Nothing brings me here, so you can wipe the smile that suggests you think something has off your face. You don't know me; I don't know you, so let us return to our beans in silence."

"All right," he said around a mouthful of biscuit, hands still clutching his cutlery lifted in supplication, "Forget I asked."

Their moment was interrupted by the pull of the chair next to them, legs dragging against the wooden floorboards in a piercing manner. Another man dropped into the seat, placing his plate on the table before him.

"Hey there, Alfred," he said before turning towards with a nod Thomas, "Mister,"

The redhead—the titular Alfred—moved closer to the new addition, leaning over the table as if to create some secrecy in th table that wasn't there. Thomas stared in distaste as he watched Alfred's linen shirt come dangerously close to meeting his gravy-filled plate. "Don't dare speak to this one, Dunn. He's an ornery fuck."

Since that was largely true, Thomas largely ignored Alfred's comment.

The other man looked towards Thomas with a bemused smirk, "No, I'm sure he's just sore somebody's taken his horse".

Breakfast forgotten, Thomas glared, "How—?"

"Only fools think to leave their horses in the hut that Carson calls a stable behind his place," the man said, "I happened to be in Carson's when you stormed in—but I suppose you were busy and didn't see me."

Thomas straightened in his hard chair and the legs of it scratched against the flooring, giving soundtrack to the resentment for having been marked a chump by a man who frequented Carson's in the middle of the morning. "You're calling me a fool?"

The man smiled sympathetically as he cut into a biscuit with the side of his fork, uncaring for the tension that now ironed Thomas' spine erect as his eyes followed only his food , "Yes, but we all were when we were new to town. You learn to realise where Carson's strengths fall, and where they do not. Just like everything else in the camp, it has its purpose, and horse stabling is not one of Carson's."

Thomas set his spoon down on the side of his plate and considered the stranger's words to find their hidden intent but found no such malice undertone. The man was merely making conversation, helpful at that; though Thomas found pretence in the implication that like the former new visitors of the town, he too would stay long enough to become learned of the town's peculiarities.

"So what, his horse's stolen?" Alfred asked of his companion, having deemed Thomas undesirable in dialogue and set to avoid interaction with him at all costs.

Dunn nodded but asked of Thomas, "Have you begun your search for it yet?"

"Her," Thomas clarified for reason he didn't understand, "And no, not yet. I figured I would start after breakfast. Perhaps canvass the local businesses to see if anyone had seen her."

"If anyone has, it'd be Price. He'd know the breed, how many hands it stood stall, and what it ate for breakfast with just a look—and he'd be looking."

"Where would I find this Price?"

"At a real stable," Dunn indulged in a smile which Thomas allowed, "he runs the town's horse livery. You can find it just off the main road, about a quarter mile east of here, past the hardware store."

Thomas nodded in appreciation, having thought that the stables would be the best place to start his search; or—he would have, had he started to think about strategies beyond dulling the aches of hunger. He stood and downed his coffee without a thought, the thickness surprisingly complimentary to the clinging syrup of the beans left on his tongue. He tipped his hat in the direction of his helpful seatmate and said a passing thank you before making for the door.

"Hope you find her, Mister," the stranger said, fishing for a name.

Thomas waved without turning his back and left the man's lure for the next stranger.


End file.
